Near-room-temperature production of diameter-tunable ZnO nanorod arrays through natural oxidation of zinc metal

A simple, low-temperature strategy has been developed for the low-cost and large-area fabrication of ZnO nanoarrays on a zinc substrate by the natural oxidation of zinc metal in formamide/water mixtures. The one-step, wet-chemical approach has exhibited well-controlled growth of highly oriented and densely packed ZnO nanoarrays with large-area homogeneity and consisting of nanorods or nanowires with predictable morphologies, such as tunable diameters and identical lengths. The chemical-liquid-deposition process, an analogue to the widely used chemical-vapor-deposition technique, has been used for the near-room-temperature production of ZnO nanoarrays through continuous supply, transport, and thermal decomposition of zinc complexes in a liquid phase.